Google: Xoom Sales Weak, Says Global Equities; Honeycomb A Mess

By Tiernan Ray

Debate continues to rage over Motorola Mobility’s (MMI) “Xoom” tablet, which went on sale a couple of weeks ago at Verizon Communications’s (VZ) Verizon Wireless unit.

The tablet, the first to go on sale using Google’s (GOOG) new version of its “Android” operating system, dubbed “Honeycomb,” has been the subject of speculation that its sales may have been weak in advance of the introduction of Apple’s (AAPL) iPad 2, which goes on sale this Friday.

Yesterday, Verizon management told analysts at the Deutshe Bank media and telecom conference that the Xoom is selling “extremely well.”

However, Trip Chowdhry with Global Equities Research today insists there’s a problem, writing that Xoom sales are “very weak,” with the tablet suffering from “poor software quality” in Honeycomb, and poor battery life.

As Chowdhry sees it, without citing specific sources for his conclusions, “Google Honeycomb is suffering from frequent application freezes and crashes,” and “the battery life is very inconsistent – lasts sometimes for 2 hours, and sometimes for 6 hours. The battery standby life is mere 10 – 12 hours vs. 30 days on Apple iPad.”

Further, Chowdhry sees numerous user interface issues: The “auto-wrap” on text is “completely missing” when text is magnified on screen, “which just shows, Google is missing attention to simple details,” in Chowdhry’s opinion.

Overalll, the Honeycomb UI “is extremely complicated and confusing,” he writes, and, “users are frustrated” because the UI “just does not come naturally – you really have to work on it,” according to users he’s heard from.

Chowdhry’s conclusion is that Google’s approach of, “‘By the Geeks, For the Geeks, Of the Geeks’ will struggle to get mass adoption – probably will be relegated to Tech Community only.”

However, Chowdhry defends a Buy rating on shares of Google, as Honeycomb, being free, is insignificant to Google’s revenue.

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There are 91 comments

MARCH 9, 2011 12:41 P.M.

Steve wrote:

Motorola was and is a good hardware engineering company, but has no track record of major success with software. Google is good at getting innovative products to beta, but consistently falls short on tying up loose ends. With this combination, the outcome above is no surprise.

MARCH 9, 2011 12:42 P.M.

Fouad wrote:

I just bought the xoom from Verizon. So far very happy with it never crashed or freezed with good battery life. If anything it is very fast and operate smoothly. Awaiting the flash player upgrade which is the main reason I bought this tablet and not considering the iPad

MARCH 9, 2011 12:42 P.M.

What? wrote:

This is so stupid. I stopped reading when you quoted the 30 day battery life of the iPad. If we had tablets that lasted 30 days, it would probably be 2020. This article is full of quoted nonsense.

MARCH 9, 2011 12:44 P.M.

Bobby wrote:

If this proves true, the real winning will be RIMM which will see the door open for the consumer market as well as a solid corporate market.

MARCH 9, 2011 12:44 P.M.

AppleFUD wrote:

Trip Chowdhry is full of BS. I have yet to see a review and use a device with the type of battery issues he is claiming. While some apps don't function properly on the Xoom due to them not being fully checked against Honeycomb, in general Honeycomb works very well. This Trip guy sounds like he might have a lot of Apple stock.

That sums it up. This guy is making crap up!!! He probably hasn't even touched a Xoom. Let me guess, his source is Steve Jobs?

MARCH 9, 2011 12:49 P.M.

Sources??? wrote:

I want to see this person's sources for the 2 hour battery life! Otherwise I'm tracking his but down and suing for slander!

MARCH 9, 2011 12:51 P.M.

WOW just unthinkable wrote:

I have a XOOM and Ive not Experienced any sort of problem Chowders talking about.
Money shows a sell off of aapl and buying of MMI

MARCH 9, 2011 12:56 P.M.

Henry 3 Dogg wrote:

@what?

That is stanby like.

My iPad is good 11 hours use and significantly more than a month standby.

MARCH 9, 2011 12:56 P.M.

@What? wrote:

The iPad has 30-day STANDBY battery life, you clueless dolt. Learn to read, or stop commenting.

MARCH 9, 2011 12:59 P.M.

Not so fast future Borg ... wrote:

When their LTE stuff comes out that'll be useless too. btw where are all the Rimtards?

MARCH 9, 2011 1:02 P.M.

Vikram wrote:

He's Tripping!!

MARCH 9, 2011 1:07 P.M.

LOL@shills wrote:

Look at all the Fandroids and shills for MMI, RIM, etc. commenting on this report. Where are YOUR sources? I'll believe someone who actually works for a living before I believe a bunch of random kool-aid drinkers spouting off on the internet.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:09 P.M.

Tom B wrote:

Well, MOT has never made a good consumer product. I suspect MMI won't either. The battery issue, though, probably relates to that abortion known as Flash.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:09 P.M.

Jeremy wrote:

I have a xoom and 6hours of battery??? with moderate use and on stanby my tablet was at 30% with 1day and 8 hrs of usage, this article is complete non-sense. Besides Ipad battery stats 10hrs not 30days.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:09 P.M.

@Bobby wrote:

"If this proves true, the real winning will be RIMM which will see the door open for the consumer market as well as a solid corporate market."

HAHAHA! Don't they actually have to, oh I don't know, SHIP A PRODUCT FIRST? You RIMjobbers are truly hilarious in your blind defense of a company full of fail.

I pad 2 has mono speaker, no flash, low screen res,twice the charge time of xoom for same hours of use,no 4g, not wide screen,really bad cameras,same price as xoom when 3g-wi model compared,multi tasking poor when compared to xoom. There are more reasons why xoom is superior too, Android 3.0 is new give it a couple updates and it will be even better.
Don't worry about xoom, worry about ipad2.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:15 P.M.

Dan wrote:

The claim of 10-12 hours of standby time is blatantly false. It's 10-12 hours of actual usage time. I haven't had any issues with my legacy Android apps running on the Xoom. There are areas for improving the software, but it's not confusing or complicated. Sounds like this analyst has an agenda to push.

Simply pathetic. Is this the best you Apple haters can come up with? I'll put iPad sales numbers and customer satisfaction up against any Android garbage that's come out or due to come out.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:17 P.M.

Trevor wrote:

Geez louise, this is such a blatant hit piece. You have never used one and you are citing hearsay of hearsay over issues, when every single legitimate review of the Xoom has said it's extremely user friendly and is better than the iPad. I've never heard of the "issues" you claim to have "heard on the grapevine" without citing sources. In short, you deserve be sued for slander.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:18 P.M.

What a joke wrote:

All these different "Xoom users" commenting to this article are the same sad little Fandroid.

"The battery STANDBY LIFE is mere 10 – 12 hours vs. 30 days on Apple iPad.” I can believe that. iDevices are programmed to use little to no battery while "asleep" or in standby. Of course results will vary when there are always on connections such as 3G or Wifi, something that the Xoom may not control to maximize conservation of the battery charge while in standby.

But the rest of the article is more or less worthless as this character lacks source citing. I have experienced first hand a very slow Xoom on a store display, but it was probably bogged down with rough user handling from the randoms who had played with the device before me.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:21 P.M.

Andy N. wrote:

This article is another attempt from the pro Apple people to put down Android tablets with out any credible sources. Trip Chowdhry don't know what he is talking about. Trip probable owns shit loads of apple stock.

Zoom is a fine piece of hardware with decent software, but at a high retail price.
It does not have wi-fi only, which is what the majority of tablet buyers want.
As a result, sell through is weak.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:25 P.M.

Here are the facts wrote:

Fandroids all up in arms over the reports about Xoom performance and Honeycomb issues, and none of them have even addressed the other part of this story. The lousy sales of this latest "iPad Killer", which have been reported as weak by other sources. The fact is, if the Xoom was a big seller, Motorola would be tripping over themselves to report the numbers. Their silence on this is deafening.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:32 P.M.

Brian B wrote:

TO What?: The article says the iPad has a STANDBY (sleep) battery life of 30 days, which is well know. The XOOM he claims is only showing STANDBY battery life of 10-12 hours. STANDBY life is not USE life.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:35 P.M.

Indionicarao wrote:

I don't think this guy knows what he is talking about, I don't think he has ever touched a Xoom. Please cite your sources to lend some credibility to this vitriol. Without sources it sounds like Apple fanboy-ism.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:36 P.M.

Dave wrote:

While I agree that I have experienced some app crashes here and there, it has never been frequent. Battery life is actually pretty amazing, probably comparable to the iPad. 10-12 hours on standby? Then I must have a freak device because I'm on day two without charging my Xoom and it's only at 50 percent with light use (was testing battery to see how long it would last.)

Extremely complicated UI? Sounds like someone hasn't used a Xoom before and is just blowing out hot air.

This is nonsense. I bought a first gen Ipad and a xoom on the same day, knowing I had 14 days to return one of them. I used the Ipad for one day, and haven't touched it in the last six. It's basically a large Ipod touch, designed for playing with apps.

I've used the xoom for 10 hours a day the last three business days, and I only have to charge it once, overnight when I go to bed. I use the Xoom to check e-mail, to take notes, and to put items from those notes into a task manager. Sometimes in a meeting, I have to refer to a document, which I can quickly call up on Google Documents. I've also edited documents there as well. Additionally, my kids have watched several videos, and the sound is loud enough, by far, for them to enjoy together.

The Xoom has not crashed once.

And, in short, none of this multitasking is remotely possible on the Ipad. Plus, I've been doing this on 3g -- when I get the 4G upgrade, it will be laughable surfing the web next to an Ipad 1 or 2.

I won't even get into the joy of having everything synced through Google to my chrome browser, mobile phone and tablet.

If you want a real portable computer in the form of a tablet, there is no comparison. Xoom is the heads and shoulders winner -- especially when you consider that two more major Honeycomb tablets are coming, with plenty of customized apps and software updates.

This guy clearly has never touched a Xoom.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:51 P.M.

HP wrote:

Trip Chowdry is tripping on something good I am sure his throat is going ChowDRY trying to cover his short MMI for a few points lower.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:57 P.M.

melinde wrote:

I gave Xoom a try at Best Buy a few days ago and left in disgust. It feels like a cheap, flimsy plastic device with shoddy workmanship and substandard parts. Without the Motorola logo, one thinks it's a toy made by Hasbro and I'm being generous here.

The system software is even worse: unresponsive with jerky motion, some actions require two or three tries with pressure to get results, and user interface is simply yuck to say the least.

It's a half-baked POS at outrageous price.

MARCH 9, 2011 1:59 P.M.

Jude wrote:

Dear Appleheads and Fandroids,

Trip Chowdhry is anything but reliable. He's a one-man operation of this so-called Global Equities Research, and for many years now, he's been cooking up rumours and speculation about just anything beneath the sun. One moment he's predicting the doom of AAPL, the next he claims that open source companies are dropping like flies. Heck, you can Google him to see what kind of ridiculous lies he's been spreading in the tech industry.

And Mr Tiernan Ray, I don't know why you still give this man any credit. He's done enough damage sending investors into a tizzy with false speculation. Do everyone a favour and ignore him.

MARCH 9, 2011 2:05 P.M.

janice wrote:

im not buying yet but i know i'll buy tablet from android and not from IOS. i'm sure there's a lot of people like me who'll wait a while til we feel our chosen OS is ready for it.

MARCH 9, 2011 2:10 P.M.

WorldThinks wrote:

Xoom is the best thing i've bought for a long time. 16 hours of active using without one charge. Still lasts! Love it.
Honeycomb is beautiful. Xoom is so powerful , i can't believe i can but such a device in 2011.

MARCH 9, 2011 2:17 P.M.

xavier wrote:

It's refreshing. Finally, someone with guts to call Xoom what it is: an unfinished piece of crap. Thanks for the info.

MARCH 9, 2011 2:35 P.M.

Eric wrote:

Google should sue this Trip guy as well as Barrons, for unfounded allegations

This guy is stupid..I have a xoom and seen no problems..looks like he is getting paid from Steve Jobs to make such comments when Job himself can call Samsung, Motorola as copy cats...

MARCH 9, 2011 3:01 P.M.

dude guy wrote:

WOW i have well over 24 hours of battery life from my Xoom and do not see these mass freeze and crashes this guy is talking about. Dudes full of crap.

MARCH 9, 2011 3:28 P.M.

Suriya wrote:

I have Xoom and haven't faced any issues discussed here. Battery life is very good. For normal use (say an hour a day for browsing) the Xoom tablet would last easily for a week time.

MARCH 9, 2011 3:48 P.M.

Specific Source wrote:

This link bait of an article offers nothing but conjecture. The battery life of the Motorola Xoom is easily 10 hours in my real life usage. And if I could stop using it, I could give a better estimate of standby life. I have not experienced "frequent application freezes and crashes" that these nonspecific sources are quoted saying.

I refuse to get into UI discussions that are subject to opinion. Especially when issues such as "completely missing" "auto-wrap" are presented without any context.

MARCH 9, 2011 3:56 P.M.

LoveTech wrote:

That is BullSh*t article about this writer. He seems not be fair with Xoom. Example: 30days vs 10 hours. This made me laugh.

MARCH 9, 2011 4:03 P.M.

Ufunny wrote:

lol this article is as pathetic as the hardware on ipad2.

MARCH 9, 2011 4:25 P.M.

Al wrote:

This is no debate in this article as it starts. It spends one small paragraph on Verizon, but all the rest in the opposite view. The article wants to say " Verizon is a lair".

MARCH 9, 2011 4:26 P.M.

nick wrote:

Honeycomb is a mess, really? Does Mr. Trip Chowdhry honeycomb is new, expect some few glitches but in a few months and by the end of the year this is what will give apple insomnia.Also google android for phones started like that now look who is out selling Apple and RIMM.Its a marathon that apple had the lead and now google with honeycomb is catching up to take the lead.

MARCH 9, 2011 4:28 P.M.

ckeegan wrote:

So, we're supposed to believe Trip's sales estimation over the company actually selling the XOOM? That makes about as much sense as 10-12 hours of standby battery life. Doubtful, considering mine hasn't been plugged in or turned off in 37 hours. Display usage time is just over 7 hours, and I'm still at 23%.

MARCH 9, 2011 4:42 P.M.

Chris wrote:

This analyst must be an idiot.. First, he says Honeycomb tablets arent doing well.. THERE IS ONLY ONE!!! No other Android 3.0 has released yet, and the XOOM just released 3 week ago...

Second, my XOOM regularly gets 8-10 hours of battery life, where the hell did he get 2-4 hours, thats just a plain lie and have heard no one else report this.. Half of his report is just plain wrong... I have very few if any issues with Honeycomb. Well it is not perfect yet, it is far from the disaster this guy is saying it is...

MARCH 9, 2011 4:53 P.M.

KD wrote:

thats the first we are hearing of bad battery life ... One of my XOOMs lasted close to 4+ days in idle mode so definitely this guy is putting shitty news w/o quoting his "sources".

if Mot is good at one thing, it usually gets its battery life better than most OEMs. This guy, Chaudhry, seems like he is trying to SHORT MMI and serving up news to help him on his optionis.

MARCH 9, 2011 5:42 P.M.

Lefteris Economou wrote:

After this guy from BARRON'S wrote this lies about the XOOM TABLET I called VZ and was told everything about the XOOM is perfect

MARCH 9, 2011 6:58 P.M.

cl0id wrote:

This article is based on an opinion from a company where " team members have both engineering and business degrees and have held various roles and responsibilities within the Industry, including Software Development, Product Management, Business Development and Sales at Microsoft, Oracle"

I smell an Apple fanboy. The claims in this article is a complete lie and is full of BS. He is just trying to bash the Xoom and try to make the iPad look like it's cool. I am using my Xoom now to type this, and the battery life is awesome. Maybe he meant 10-12 days in standby mode, because according to my personal use the Xoom WILL last 14+ days really easy in standby mode, just as Motorola's official site says it will. But even still... the claim about 30 DAYS for the Ipad? BS to the max! That dude needs to STFU and go live under a rock, or maybe he already does? It's funny how people think the iPad is the best thing in the world, when in reality iOS is inferior when compared to that of Android.

MARCH 9, 2011 7:29 P.M.

Justin wrote:

Expected better from you Ray. I've had 30 hours with a lot of use and still 25% battery left. Lets get the facts straight here.

MARCH 9, 2011 7:31 P.M.

Analyst Is An Apple Pumper-google him and see! wrote:

The analyst is lying. His firm covers Apple and if you google Trip Chowdry, the 'analyst' you'll see he's a long time Apple Pimp who bashes all things Android regularly

I was actually in a Best Buy today to see the XOOM and played with it for a half hour without a glitch. In addition the asst manager of the store got to talking and he said they were sold out of the XOOM and that most of the stores in the NY area were having a hard time keeping stock because they were selling so many XOOMs. This 'analyst' is doing what analysts do...lying to manipulate opinion.

MARCH 9, 2011 7:50 P.M.

Corv wrote:

This guy didn't cite any sources when he made his claims. That is immediately suspect. I'm no analyst, but I AM a user. I've had a Xoom since launch and I haven't had any issues with battery, the UI really isn't complicated and I've had no issue finding what I want or need, and the handful of app crashes I experienced were on only a couple apps that weren't tablet optimized yet. Those crashes have frustrated me, but I also know I have a brand new product and I don't expect that every single thing is going to be perfect. Some people may have a different expectation.

Now, when they release their first update to Honeycomb and as more apps are relased that are tablet optimized, I will expect the app crashes to decrease. If they don't, then I'll have a problem with the Xoom.

MARCH 9, 2011 8:19 P.M.

M wrote:

When Apple fanboys don't want to accept the truth they just start making things up. What's new about that? It must really suck to be an Apple fanboy these days. I would hate it too if I had invested a lot of money in inferior technology.

BTW: The Xoom will play a video for 9.2 hours non stop, based on a recent CNET Crave test. You can read it there. Whoever thinks the Xoom has a standby battery life of 10-12 hours is a clueless moron.

MARCH 9, 2011 11:46 P.M.

hotoil86 wrote:

And for my next purchase, I'm picking up a playbook to pair up with my, you guessed it, Bold. You losers keep coloring on your toypad and playing angry birdies.

MARCH 9, 2011 11:56 P.M.

Mike wrote:

Chowdhry must have gone off on a severe and debilitating crack binge before reviewing the Xoom, since he failed to mention a single fact. Battery life is 10-12 hours when you're using it, lasts days and days when you don't... see I actually own a Xoom unlike him. Honeycomb is great, hell of alot better than iOS

MARCH 10, 2011 1:09 A.M.

wow wrote:

I can't believe they would even post this android hater.?or what who is this schmuck this is terrible reporting of facts my xoom gets more than 10 hrs of battery life in use what an idiot

MARCH 10, 2011 1:20 A.M.

plastic lol wrote:

You called the xoom. Plastic when its made of metal can't judge unless you own one idiot'

MARCH 10, 2011 7:47 A.M.

bobbby wrote:

Trip Chowdry.... you are a total idiot. You name suits you. 30 days battery life on what a WiFi Ipad? Vs 3G phone.... this article sucks and whoever this unknown speculator is can get stuffed...

MARCH 10, 2011 11:37 A.M.

Kent wrote:

I have been testing a Xoom and can somewhat back up what this is saying. The software looked at little unfinished. It froze on me a couple of times when I went to play video and it actually took quite a bit of time to boot up. I would expect most of these issues to iron themselves out over time though. It seemed fast, and the actual build quality was quite good, not as polished as an iPad, but not bad for a first attempt.

MARCH 10, 2011 12:09 P.M.

Anonymous wrote:

Trip Chowdry asserts baseless data points constantly - I believe he was the one who suggested that Cisco was moving to a 4-day work week back in 2008? He's honestly not even worth quoting, Tiernan.

Terrible article. I own a ipad and the xoom. Very bad article. This person is obviously dumb.

MARCH 10, 2011 12:42 P.M.

Stenniz wrote:

What are all you xoom lovers doing up all night when your xoom runs out of battery? Probably playing dungeons and dragons

MARCH 10, 2011 1:35 P.M.

john wrote:

All i have to say is that this Guy is clueless. Yes the xoom needs work, but I will not trade mine in for anything.

MARCH 10, 2011 2:48 P.M.

Gotboth wrote:

all the commentor that slam the authors ipad battery life assertion of 30 days of STANDBY need to learn to read. the iPAD DOES get 10 hrs and 30days of STANDBY battery life. I have two. I know. Also I have a Xoom at work. It is horrible.

MARCH 10, 2011 4:20 P.M.

Chowdry is a freak of analysts wrote:

I googled him and he has said some wacky things. I am starting to like it. in 2008 he said that android will fail because "all developers are sucked up" by apple and microsoft and that HTC is having problems. 2-3 years later, HTC is the biggest maker of android and android itself is the biggest smartphone platform.http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2008/08/07/google-gphone-delayed-by-htc-glitches-global-equities-says/
Check out his other freakopredictions. In december he says he xoom will sell well. Hmm wait a minute, maybe his just playing the market because Motorla stock went up from Dec 10 to Jan 11. Now he is trying to drive it down.

These bastard analysts will always play with people's money.

MARCH 10, 2011 7:35 P.M.

Jon wrote:

15 million iPads in 9 months. Come get us...

Ow and by the way your welcome for creating a market for you to sell your more expensive 2nd rate crap

MARCH 10, 2011 9:13 P.M.

Eric wrote:

He said 30 days of standby. Anyone who misread or misinterpreted may not mind an operating system with small problems. And that's OK.

MARCH 11, 2011 2:56 P.M.

Mark wrote:

These articles are so poorly written. I've always written off the iSheep idea but after the last 24 hours I've seen the truth. Biased... awful quotation and false information... no credibility or sources... wow.

The Xoom has not failed me since day one and is getting better daily. Software can be fixed OTA... any bugs experienced will be squashed over time. And whats with apple being so innovative? I feel like iOS is a static system while android is constantly growing and expanding in all areas. Meh. Poor article.

MARCH 12, 2011 1:32 P.M.

Tony wrote:

I own both and this article is not accurate to say the least. My Xoom has not had the issues quoted here, battery life has been running 7 to 8 hours if being used all day and I would not be supprised if there are certain application issues but those are one offs. Ipad is currently a superior product until they push the updates (which should have been at launch).
This always comes down to "either want an Apple or you don't" but the Xoom thus far has been a good product an a alternative.

MARCH 13, 2011 3:58 A.M.

ted wrote:

trip howdry I suspect to be very "weak", is of poor software review quality and suffers poor battery life. He cannot even play with a tablet for geeks, therefore his job in global equities may soon be a "mess".

He said it, not me.

MARCH 13, 2011 8:08 A.M.

Vincent wrote:

As one of the other posters have said, there is simply no competition for the Xoom right now when it comes to handheld computing. I loved my ipad... but it was more of a novelty. It's an iPod Touch with a larger screen... which is fun, but at the end of the day, just a toy. The Xoom immediately feels like a futuristic computer. The difference is probably due to the fact that it can actually do multitasking, web browsing, and notifications well... all things that the ipad is sub-par at (because it performs like a phone instead of a PC). The email and calendar apps are also MUCH better.

All of the tablet apps on the Xoom run and look better as well. The Tegra 2 chip is a beast! But there are only a handful of tablet apps compared to iTunes... still, the quality is there & we will see the quantity grow every month just like we did on iTunes.

MARCH 13, 2011 8:43 A.M.

Henry wrote:

I have no idea on sales but I'm interested to know how the tablet is doing as well. I don't expect sales to take off until an official wifi only announcement. But this guy couldn't be further from the truth on performance! It took me all of 15 min to 'learn the interface... its pretty much like using a computer. I have NO problems with system crashes or freezes. Far less glitchy than when I first bought my ipad.... which hardly gets mentioned... but I haven't had a single Force Close in any program since Google's update yesterday morning... running flawlessly! By far the best tablet experience I've had so far.

MARCH 13, 2011 8:46 A.M.

Henry wrote:

Also, the battery life is consistently b/w 9-11 hrs for me. About the same if slightly less than my ipad.

MARCH 14, 2011 8:14 P.M.

ENDGame wrote:

I have the one comment to make this all go away.... Final Sales numbers.... Xoom (Best end all machine tablet) = 300K units in 90 days, Ipad 2 = 500K+ in 2 days......

Can Argue about that.... Facts and opinions are on both sides. At the end of the day the person with the sales are the only thing that matters.

There are things in the world that are the BEST and has the BADdest ARSE hardware out there, but it seems they go as fast as they arrive.

Example Cars. BMW = The Ultimate Driving Machine..... Name another slogan for another car that you know of......

Nuff Said

MARCH 31, 2011 5:02 A.M.

Noir wrote:

Have been playing with the Wifi Xoom this week. Am very satisfied with how everything ties in with Google, but am also a little disappointed with performance. Xoom will often freeze for 10-30 seconds. Apps also frequently crash. Although I enjoy Honeycomb, I don't think it's ready for the day to day usage I would like to do. I also don't think most apple users would be comfortable with the higher tech knowledge required to customize/personalize the device.

APRIL 4, 2011 2:59 A.M.

Anthony wrote:

I have an Archos 70 tablet and I've messed around with my friend's Xoom. I also have an old windows mobile phone and the android OS is EXACTLY like windows mobile with "SPB shell" on it. Android is trying to be too much like a computer and not like it's own thing, that's what Windows is for.

I own an iPod touch and I have to say I don't think there are as many good apps for these Android devices, especially exclusives that you can't get anywhere else. I search for top apps for Android and they're... nothing! iOS has cool games and if you have a jailbroken iOS device you can do everything that you can on an Android device. Dropbox type stuff, emulators, extend your computer screen, wifi sync itunes, etc etc. Plus who knows what iOS 5 is going to bring when it's announced soon, people are comparing things to how they are now. The only thing Android will ever be is a weak alternative to Windows.

Everything comes down to personal preference though. Both products are making each other innovate more so we should all be thankful. I think the reason why Android has done so well in the phone market though is because they gave away android phones for free with new contracts. If you wanted an iPhone you had to spend at least 200 dollars or more to get one. I really don't think the collective effort of android tablets will have the same outcome as in the phone market. People are comparing the wrong things.... start comparing the tablet market with the mp3 player market. Zune was thought to be a major competitor to the iPod touch for a pretty long time. When people are required to spend the same amount or more for a tablet people will choose the better product.

Yes people love to compare specs which is horribly pointless. Look at the handheld video game market for instance.... the Nintendo DS compared to the PSP. Obviously the PSP has far better graphics and capabilities yet the DS sold much better. Lets all just be thankful we have a product we EACH enjoy shall we?

About Tech Trader Daily

Tech Trader Daily is a blog on technology investing written by Barron’s veteran Tiernan Ray. The blog provides news, analysis and original reporting on events important to investors in software, hardware, the Internet, telecommunications and related fields. Comments and tips can be sent to: techtraderdaily@barrons.com.